60 .", ............--. yfø -- " .. I(< v.... , !jJ .." .., . ; ........... ............ \ 1>- "Mr Hauser' I thought you were a bookish one!)) . . looked at no one. Lars Bang obtaIned glasses, kicked a chair in my direction, and poured drinks all round. "To your health!" he saId (with what I thought an ironical overtone) and we drank. " TI 0 " L B O d l1S young man, ars ang sal , nodding at me, "is here seeking our ad- vice on a very complicated husiness. A murder, I believe you said?" "1 said nothing of the kind. I seek information ïbout an accident." The claret was soon exhausted. Without looking at me, Lars Bang opened a second bottle and set it in the center of the table. The beautiful dark-haired girl ignored me along with all the others. For my part, I felt I had conducted myself rather well thus far. I had not protested when the wine was made free of (after all, they would be accustomed to levying a sort of tax on anything entering through the back door). But also I had not per- mitted his word "murder" to be used, but instead specified the use of the word " O d " TI f I . aCCI en t. 1ere ore was, In gen- eral, comfortahle sitting at the table drinking the wine, for which I have no better head than had my father. "Well," said Lars Bang, at length, "I will relate the cIrcumstances of the ac- cident, and you may judge for yourself as to whether myself or my master, the Lensgreve Ahlefeldt, was at fault." I absorbed this news with a slight shock. A count! I had selected a man of very high rank indeed to put my question to. In a moment my accumulated self- confidence drained away. A count! Mother of God, have mercy on me. . There is my father, peering through an open door into an empty house. He is accompanied by a dog (small dog; not the same dog as hefore). He looks in to the empty room. He says: "Any- body home?" . There is my father, sIttIng In his bed, weeping. . "It was a Friday," Lars Bang be- gan, as if he Were telling a tavern story. "The hour was close upon nOon and my master directed me to drive hIm to King's New Square, where he had some business. We were proceeding there at a modest easy pace, for he was in no great hurry. Judge of my aston- ishment when, passing through the drapers' quarter, we found ourselves set upon by an elderly man, thoroughly drunk, who flung himself at my lead pair and began cutting at their legs with a stick, in the most vicious man- ner imaginable. The poor dumb brutes reared, of course, in fright and fear, for [Lars Bang said piously] they are accustomed to the best of care, and never a blow do they receive from me, or from the other coachman, Rik, for the count is especially severe upon this poin t, that his animals he well treated. The horses, then, were rearing and plunging; it was all I could do to hold them. I shouted at the man, who fell back for an instant. The count stuck his head out of the window, to inquire as to the nature of the trouhle, and I told him that a drunken man had at- tacked our horses Your father, In his blindness, being not content with the mischief he had already worked, ran back in again, close to the anim tls, dnd began madl) cutting at their legs with his stick. At this renewed attack the horses, frightened out of their "vits, jerked the reins from my hands and ran headlong over your father, who fel] beneath their hooves. The heavy wheels of the carriage passed over hiI11 (I felt two quite distinct th umps ), his body caught upon a projection under the boot, dnd he was dragged Oll1e forty feet, over the cobblestonLs. I was attempting, with a11 my I11ight, 111crely to hang on to the box, for, having taken the bIt between their teeth, the horses were in no mood to tarry; nor could any human agency have stopped them. We flew down the street. 0 ." . My father is attending a class in good behavior. "Do the men rise VrThen friends greet us while we are eating in a booth?" "The men do not rise when they are seated in a booth," he answers, "al- though they may half rise and make apologies for not funy rising." . ". . . the horses turning into the way that leads to King's New Square, and it was not until we reached that place that they stopped and allowed me to quiet them. I wanted to go back and see what had become of the madman, your father, who had attacked us, but my master, vastly angry and shaken up, forbade it. I have never seen him in so fearful a temper as that day; if your father had survived, and my mas- ter got his hands on him, it would have gone ill with your father, that's a certaIn ty. And so, you are no\\ in pos- session of all the facts. I trust you are satisfied, and will drink another bottle of this quite fair claret you have brought us, and be on your way." Before I had tIme to frame a reply, the dark-haired girl spoke. "Bang is an absolute bloody liar," she said. . ETC. -DONALD BARTHELME